TIM CONE was named head coach of the men’s national team to the Hangzhou 19th Asian Games.
It’s one gargantuan task with Gilas Pilipinas’s first game against Bahrain set 18 days from today, Friday.
But with Ramon S. Ang (RSA) telling Cone to coach the “national team,” he didn’t think twice to accept the task.
“You can’t say no to RSA,” Cone told reporters in a joint news conference called by the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) and the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas on Thursday afternoon at the league’s offices in Libis, Quezon City.
Cone was head coach of the national squad to the Asian Games way back in 1998 in Bangkok where he steered the then called the Centennial Team to a bronze medal finish. He was also head coach when the country won the gold medal in the 2019 Philippines Southeast Asian Games.
Although the Gilas final 12 for Hangzhou wasn’t officially announced by both the SBP—represented by its president Al Panlilio and vice president Ricky Vargas—and the PBA—also Vargas as chairman, commissioner Willie Marcial and vice chairman Bobby Rosales (Terrafira)—hints were made as to who will form the core of the team.
Cone, Vargas and Ginebra San Miguel governor Alfrancis Chua said shoo-ins are San Miguel Beer’s June Mar Fajardo, who was instructed to fly back to Manila from Cebu where he’s on vacation, and Gin King Scottie Thompson, who had to postpone a trip to Japan.
“The usual suspects,” said Cone when asked who’ll be in the final 12. “And we’ll be practicing starting Monday.”
Cone was on the original roster submitted by the Philippine Olympic Committee to the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee but was listed as an assistant to head coach Chot Reyes.
But Reyes “stepped aside” as Gilas head coach after the FIBA World Cup, thus the task landed on Cone’s laps.
With San Miguel Beer on top of the Hangzhou campaign, Chua said the logic was to ask the PBA’s most successful coach to handle the Asian Games campaign.
“Tell him to coach for the country,” narrated Chua quoting Ang when he sought the SMC honcho’s permission on Cone.
Chua will be the team manager and Marcial deputy team manager in Hangzhou, while Jong Uichico, Josh Reyes, LA Tenorio and Richard Del Rosario will be Cone’s deputies.
Cone, owner of 25 PBA crowns, narrated that he was in the middle of a nine-hole round of golf with the LA Lakers’ Austin Reeves and some members of the US team on Monday morning when he got the call from Chua telling him of his appointment.
“Doing it again kind of takes my breath away,” Cone, 65, said, adding “I’m preparing to have a two-way player who can play good offense and an absolutely great defender.”
Naturalized players Justin Brownlee and Ange Kouame, Japeth Aguilar and Roger Pogoy are among the “usual suspects,” according to Cone and Chua, although Chris Newsome, CJ Perez, Calvin Oftana and Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser, who were on the list submitted by the SBP to the POC last July, are believed to be tops on the choices for the final 12.
Cone to coach Gilas in Hangzhou Asiad
Source: News Paper Radio
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